This article originally ran in the June 2012 issue of AVN magazine. Pictured here from the cover of the magazine are (left to right) Trinity St. Clair, Dani Daniels, Brett Rossi and Remy LaCroix.
For a gallery of all 16 of these fresh new performers, click here.
To see the June 2012 issue online, click here.
New girls are the lifeblood of the porn industry. Without fresh babes, there would be no new porn to watch. As part of our annual tradition for the Fresh Issue, AVN has assembled a selection of buzzworthy starlets we predict will have a lasting impact. You've probably seen, and been charmed by, many of the girls we've listed, while others are truly brand new. Either way, these dynamic performers (15 “genetic girls” and one TS starlet) are ones to watch, with roles in high-profile new releases. Keep your eyes peeled for our bumper crop of Fresh Faces. (Mini profiles written by Tod Hunter, Steve Javors, Mark Kernes and Peter Warren)
Mollie Bennett
Mollie Bennett shot her first scene in late 2011, a couple of months after her 18th birthday. “I was doing nude modeling and I was offered a BJ scene for $400 and I did it to see if I would like it, and I wound up loving it,” Bennett said. “They made sure I was comfortable; it wasn’t weird, it was easy.”
Although she is of the generation that grew up with easily accessible porn, she didn’t watch it. “When I was in high school I was super-innocent. I had a boyfriend who used to watch porn,” she laughs. “I got so mad at him.”
Bennett thinks the best scene she has shot so far was in Teacher’s Pet 3 for Joey Silvera for Evil Angel. “It was with Nacho Vidal. He’s amazing,” Bennett said. “I’d work with him any time. That was the first time I ever squirted. I squirted everywhere, I came so much.”
She told AVN that she wants to get in on the parody wave: “I’m looking forward to doing some parody movies. I haven’t been in a real one yet. Nobody’s asked me.”
Bennett plans to make a career in the adult industry: “I’m building a fan base, and I’m trying to do it the smartest way I can, in order to gain more fans and stay in the industry as long as I can.
“I love it. It’s the best job ever.”
Dani Daniels
Almost since the get-go Dani Daniels has been regarded as one of the industry’s top girl/girl performers. The native of Orange County, Calif., has done around 50 scenes since entering the business early last year. She’s also stepped into the director’s chair for Filly Films (Dani Daniels’ Fantasy Girls; Dani Daniels’ The Yoga Instructor) and twice for Penthouse Studios. “It’s really rare for me to cast a girl I haven’t slept with,” she said. “When you sleep with someone you know what they like so it made it easier to pair them up.”
Daniels’ sexual prowess is on full display in the upcoming star vehicle, Dani, from Elegant Angel. “Dani hit really close to home for me,” the starlet said. “Mason got really personal, which I was totally OK with, and she showed me a new way I could connect with my fans. Each scene is a ‘10’ and shows a different side of me. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m so proud of it. Plus, it was so much fun to shoot. Mason and her team had me laughing every moment and really made me feel special. When I turned in the cast of girls I wanted, I was shocked when every girl could either do it or changed their schedule around so they could. It was so flattering. I think the movie is perfect.”
Remy LaCroix
Remy LaCroix was an amateur specialty dancer (“Not like stripping—hula-hooping, fire dancing, aerial stuff at Burning Man and music festivals”) who was recruited by Kink.com, first as a solo performer and then for its BoundGangbang site. “That was my favorite website that I would watch on my own time, and they asked me to do it first,” she said. “I was totally excited, because in my fantasies to be in that situation would be awesome, and they were going to pay me, and they were going to film it. It went really well.” [Note: after the Fresh issue hit the street, LaCroix said she was leaving the business.]
Encouraged by the male talent in the scene—including Mr. Pete, Mark Davis and Ramon Nomar—she came from her native San Francisco to L.A. in February and applied her performance skills to having sex on camera in “maybe 50” scenes.
“What you’re doing is selling sex,” she said. “Of course you want it to feel great, but you’re selling it. You have to balance between being camera-aware and being camera-unaware. If it’s panning up to your face, do something interesting with your face and not your vagina. But don’t oversell it. It’s a fine line.”
She’s already got three titles out from Evil Angel (including Jonni Darkko’s Angels of Debauchery 9 and Mike Adriano’s Anal Bombshells) and she’s the centerpiece of an upcoming Elegant Angel release, Remy—and “every scene so far has been epic.”
Tessa Lane
Statuesque Tessa Lane moved to L.A. from her native Long Island, New York, specifically to be a porn star after a chance meeting with performer/manager Tee Reel at a party in California.
“I made the big move [to Los Angeles] last May [2011]. Moved out of my parents’ house, left all my friends, came out here to do porn.”
Recently, Lane has appeared in an eight-page spread in Fox magazine (“I didn’t know about it; it was a content shoot and my manager showed it to me at a newsstand.”) and has shot for Reality Kings, Naughty America, Adam & Eve, Brazzers and West Coast Productions (“I can’t remember them all”) and a standout scene with Manuel Ferrara in Digital Playground’s upcoming Odd Jobs: “I walked out in a daze. He reads a girl’s chemistry and knows what she likes.”
Lane’s easygoing demeanor contrasts with her intensity in her sex scenes: “I’m definitely like the girl next door, but I’m completely different when I’m having sex. I’m like the ‘Sexorcist’ ... I like the fact that I go from giggling and laughing straight into a scene.”
“I’m on the rise to the top. I plan to take over,” she said with a laugh.
Leilani Leeane
Just 19 years old, Leilani Leeane has made an impression in her first year as an adult performer. (“It’ll be a year in June.”) Hailing from L.A.-adjacent Lancaster, Calif., she has shot 50-some scenes (“I think it’s terrible that I don’t count them, maybe like 50?”), following up on her joking grade-school boast that she was going to be a porn star.
“I was an attention whore ... so to get attention I would say ‘I’m going to be a porn star.’ In ninth grade it wasn’t really serious. I just liked being nasty and dirty—and getting attention for it from everyone.”
Her exotic look comes from her Asian and Caribbean heritage—“My mom is Filipino and black, and my dad is Puerto Rican”—and she said, “I still have some mileage on my tires ... I’m still figuring out life.
“I don’t have a long-range plan, I just go with the flow. I feel like everything’s going to happen for a reason, so whatever life plans out for me that’s just what I’m going to go with,” Leeane said. “I don’t have set goals, because I feel that limits you to how much you can do in life.”
Lia Lor
Watch out, Alexis Texas ... there’s a new blondie in town from the Lone Star State, and with only a handful of scenes under her belt, she’s already got folks chattering up a storm. Starting out last September as a cam girl for Naked.com, 21-year-old Lia Lor soon got recruited by Bang Bros to fly out and shoot a full-on porn scene in Miami. Then in March, she came to L.A., hooked up with agent Mark Spiegler, and found herself with a bona fide new career on her hands.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be this awesome,” Lor said. “I was only supposed to be out here for two weeks, and then I ended up moving in with Mark and staying here for two months.”
She’s since hauled the rest of her belongings out and taken up residence in her own Porn Valley pad. An interesting life path for a girl with so seemingly wholesome a pedigree: honor roll student, cheerleader, “all that good cliché stuff,” as she put it. But as they say, those are exactly the type you really have to look out for.
“I discovered my first porn site around 14 or 15 years old, and I would sneak into my family computer at night and look at porn. A lot,” Lor revealed. “I learned how to delete browsing history really quickly.”
Her favorite stuff to peruse in those formative days? “Mostly girl/girl and gangbang.” Touché.
Not a single one of Lia Lor’s scenes had yet appeared on DVD as of press time, but in the interim, she does continue to do live cam shows and can be found on Twitter @lia_lor.
Adrianna Luna
With Adrianna Luna, what you see is not what you get. Her natural 34D rack makes her photograph bigger than her diminutive 5-foot-3 stature (“My chest gets more attention than the other parts of my body”) and her bubbly and youthful demeanor belies that she’s in her mid-20s.
A Los Angeles native, Luna was an executive assistant at a mainstream production-financing company before she started making videos in March 2011 at the suggestion of a girlfriend.
“I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing, and I was stuck because it was very safe. I wanted something with flexibility, and my girlfriend said, ‘Why not do porn?’ I thought she was joking.
“I did my first scene and I loved it. I never expected to like it as much as I do.”
A standout of her scenes (“Probably about 100 ... I’ve been a busy girl”) is a recent one she shot with Mark Ashley and Winston Burbank for Jonni Darkko’s Angels of Debauchery 9: “It was really rough and kind of dirty, and I don’t get to do very many scenes like that. It’s a different look from many of the other scenes I’ve done. I had a lot of fun with it.”
Luna spends her free time at the gym (“If I’m not working, I’m working out”) and will play an MMA fighter for a Wicked Pictures production later this year.
Cassandra Nix
Every year there’s always a handful of performers who enter the business just past their 18th birthdays and shock everyone by just how hardcore they are. Cassandra Nix fits perfectly in that group. Fresh from Springfield, Ohio, this long-legged, lithe, brunette stunner has set the porn world ablaze with her super-skilled and sloppy head game and penchant for anal (check her out getting thoroughly pummeled by Nacho Vidal in Sexual Messiah from Joey Silvera).
In fact, this hardcore hottie celebrated her 20th birthday by getting d.p.’ed the day before by Mark Wood and James Deen with Bobbi Starr in the director’s chair for a movie called Old School. It was Nix’s first-ever d.p. on- or off-camera and will be released in July through Evil Angel. Nix has shown her sexual chops for many of the major studios and is fast becoming a Kink.com favorite.
Maddy O’Reilly
A redheaded lass from Mount Airy, N.C., O’Reilly has quietly built her career since entering the business, but has gotten considerably more exposure in recent months with a series of high-profile box cover appearances. Initially getting her start for Mofos in Miami, O’Reilly has parlayed that into scenes with some of the biggest companies in the business, such as Wicked, Brazzers, Jules Jordan Video and Evil Angel.
She told AVN that she was a fan of porn prior to entering the business and prefers rough and aggressive scenes, which are fully on display with the S&M-tinged Power and Control from Digital Sin. “I love the exploration of my body and others and discovering the many ways people orgasm,” she said. “And most of all I love porn because I can express my sexuality more openly and be around likeminded people.”
Riley Reid
This Florida cutie lit up the porn world from the moment she arrived. The freshly scrubbed Reid shot her first scene for Vivid’s Brand New Faces 36, though it wasn’t the first title of hers to be released.
Reid’s been one of the hottest box cover girls, having been featured on the front cover of Spinners (Jonni Darkko/Evil Angel), Cuties 3 (Elegant Angel), Lollipop Girls (Digital Sin) and The Friend Zone (New Sensations Romance), in which she essayed her first starring role. Reid got a proper showcase in Jules Jordan’s star vehicle series, Ultimate Fuck Toy. She recently spent a month in New Zealand shooting for InTheCrack.com, no doubt furthering her worldwide appeal.
Reid recently moved to SoCal from Miami so we’re sure to see her in lots of future releases to come. “She’s going to be one of the next big superstars,” Jules Jordan said of Reid. “She has girl-next-door looks with an all-natural body and a huge love of sex. She has a really cool personality, too. Some girls you can just put the camera on and let her go do her thing. She’s like that.”
Jessie Rogers
Born in Goiania, Brazil, Jessie Rogers came to the U.S. at age seven and entered the adult industry soon after she turned 18, shooting more than 100 scenes in a flurry of activity before taking a break to get a boob job last spring. (“Everyone was so fascinated by my butt, saying, ‘You’ve got a great ass,’ and I wanted to have great boobs too. I wanted to be proportional.”)
The hiatus during the recovery from surgery was “really boring. I don’t like not working. I’m pretty happy that I’m working again, for a lot of different people. A lot for Brazzers,” she said. “I can’t even remember everybody.”
Since returning to active performing, she has added anal scenes to her repertoire. She “wants to do everything sexually in front of a camera. I haven’t been gangbanged yet.”
She will turn 19 in August.
Addy Rose
When it comes to t-girls in porn, they don’t come much fresher than Addy Rose, a cute brunette from Oregon who practically stumbled into porn.
“I have been in the industry since February, since the Tranny Awards in L.A.; that’s kind of when I got introduced to all of it,” Rose said. “I loved the awards; the show was so amazing. I went with my roommate, Kelly Clare—she’s another porn star—and I actually got to meet my idol, Jesse Flores, so I loved it so much.”
Rose also managed to hook herself up with a manager at the show, Doc Smoothy, and he and prominent TS personality Brittany St. Jordan are currently helping her with her career and setting up her website, which is expected to go live in October. Meanwhile, she’s done one solo shoot (for Shemale Strokers 51), and will be shooting for Grooby for the foreseeable future, as well as getting content ready for her site.
“I love the industry so far, the four months I’ve been in, and I’m looking forward to shooting with a lot of amazing people,” she gushed.
Brett Rossi
This statuesque beauty arrived on the radar last year and quickly became a girl/girl fan favorite. Just a few months into the business, the SoCal native’s rapid ascent included the Twistys Treat of the Month for November 2011, Miss Howard Stern TV for December 2011 and Penthouse Pet of the Month for February 2012. Last month, Rossi finished as the runner-up in the 2012 Twistys Treat of the Year contest.
Standing 5-foot-8 with hazel eyes and blond hair, Rossi has been featured prominently in a number of all-girl titles, including Lesbian Workout (Elegant Angel), Fantasy Girls: Glamour Solos (Girlfriends Films), Dani Daniels’ Fantasy Girls (Filly Films) and My First Lesbian Experience (Hustler Video). Rossi also served as a trophy girl at the 2012 AVN Awards, a prestigious duty given out to one of the industry’s top rising stars.
Rossi’s attitude toward sex and the business of making it is refreshing. In addition to her super-hot Sapphic scenes, she’s gained a reputation as punctual, fun and easy to work with. With an appetite for pussy that seems insatiable, along with her sparkling personality, Rossi’s a sure bet to climb to even greater heights.
Stevie Shae
Stevie Shae tells us she just kind of fell into the adult industry shortly after she turned 18 (though she’d done some underage art-school modeling before). In that first video, an early volume of Mofos’ Real Slut Party, she was only supposed to simulate muff-munching her co-stars. Shae recalls, “I ate every girl out, and the director was like, ‘Fuck, that’s kind of impressive! Why don’t you come up to my place and we’ll talk and whatever and get to know each other and see what’s going on.’”
Stevie says she got to do some rap and even handle the camera a bit in that first shoot, but it barely prepared her for what was to follow.
“This director introduced me to all these stars,” Stevie explained, “and it was such a lifestyle that I was so intrigued with, that I was pulled in and influenced by all these girls and guys, and when AEE rolled around, I ended up going there with that director and walking the red carpet.”
Of course, that was the fun part. Not quite so much fun was how she felt after her first 13 days shooting in south Florida: “I thought my vagina was going to fall off!”
Indeed; after that, even this “almost an Olympic gymnast” and snake breeder had to take it easy—but she’s come back roaring!
Trinity St. Clair
If there’s one thing Trinity St. Clair wants people to know about her, it’s that “she’s fuckin’ Italian. She’s not Hispanic, she’s not Mediterranean, she’s not Persian, she’s fuckin’ Italian.”
(Oh yeah, and she also has a penchant for talking about herself in the third person.)
The Northern California native who describes herself as “the ultimate anal-loving spinner” moved to L.A. in February of last year after shooting a few porn scenes at the suggestion of her then boyfriend and realizing she had found her calling.
“I fell in love. I was in love with it,” she gushed. “It was like an adrenaline rush, and I love adrenaline. Like I do extravagant things like scuba diving, I like skydiving, I love roller coasters—I love adrenaline rushes, and that’s what it is for me.”
Holding a B.A. in psychology, 22-year-old Trinity (who says, “I have the mind of a 40-year-old but the body of a 15-year-old”) was planning to become a child life specialist. But once the porn bug had bitten her, there was no looking back.
“This isn’t just my career, it’s my lifestyle,” she asserted. “I live and breathe Trinity. I don’t go by my real name anywhere. Trinity is who I go by. It’s who I am, I’ve become this person, and I love it.”
Get in on the Trinity St. Clair love with Anal Playground from Jules Jordan’s The Ass Factory, Spinners from Jonni Darkko/Evil Angel, Angel Face 2 from New Sensations, and on her own newly launched website, TrinityStClair.com.
Sovereign Syre
This woman with the regal-sounding name has taken quite an interesting journey down the rabbit hole into adult entertainment. A former nude model based in New York City, Syre, she of the lustrous lips and all-natural body, previously had modeled for God’s Girls in 2009, before she shot for Holly Randall, and was then subsequently “recruited” by director Nica Noelle.
Syre spent her first six months in the business shooting exclusively for Noelle, who fashioned the beauty as her muse. “I was very lucky to have people mentor me the whole way through,” Syre told AVN. “I had thought about doing porn before, but I didn’t know people made the type of porn that she makes. … I felt Nica would take care of me like no one else would.”
Syre’s first scene came in My Sister Celine with Dylan Ryan, which Noelle made for Sweetheart Video. Since then, she’s shot about 15-20 scenes, many of which are now hitting store shelves. Smart and conscientious, Syre points to her scenes with Sinn Sage (Lesbian Sorority from Sweetheart Video, distributed by Mile High) and Dani Daniels (Lesbian Slumber Party from Noelle’s Girl Candy Films, distributed by AEBN) as two of her best.
Plus, she’s about to make her boy-girl debut for Noelle’s Hard Candy Films. “I’m really glad fans have responded to me and the work,” she said. “There’s a lot more to come.”
